Love You More

by Lisa Gardner

  It sounded like justifiable homicide, given the number of other women willing to corroborate Tommy’s history of sexual assault. And yet, for one woman to have now been involved in two fatal shootings… First one involving an aggressive teenage boy. Second one involving an abusive husband. First incident a single shot to the leg that just happened to prove fatal. Second incident three shots to the chest, center of the kill zone.

  Two shootings. Two incidents of self-defense. Bad luck, D.D. mused, taking a second small sip of orange juice. Or learning curve?

  Walthers and Bobby finished up their meals. Bobby grabbed the check, Walthers grunted his thanks. They exchanged cards, then Walthers went his way, leaving Bobby and D.D. standing alone on the sidewalk.

  Bobby turned to her the second Walthers disappeared around the corner. “Something you want to tell me, D.D.?”

  “No.”

  He clenched his jaw, looked like he might press the matter, then didn’t. He turned away, studying the front awning of the diner. If D.D. didn’t know better, she’d think his feelings were hurt.

  “Got a question for you,” D.D. said, to change the subject and ease the tension. “I keep coming back to Tessa Leoni, forced to kill two men in two separate incidents of self-defense. I’m wondering, is she that unlucky, or is she that smart?”

  That caught Bobby’s attention. He turned back to her, expression intent.

  “Think about it,” D.D. continued. “Tessa’s hung out to dry at sixteen, ends up pregnant and alone at twenty-one. But then, in her own words, she rebuilds her life. Sobers up. Gives birth to a beautiful daughter, becomes a respectable police officer, even meets a great guy. Until the first time he drinks too much and whacks her. Now what does she do?”

  “Cops don’t confide in other cops,” Bobby said stiffly.

  “Exactly,” D.D. agreed. “Violates the code of the patrol officer, who’s expected to handle all situations alone. Now, Tessa could leave her husband. Next time Brian shipped out, Tessa and Sophie would have a sixty-day window to get settled into their own place. Except, maybe having lived in a cute little house, Tessa doesn’t want to return to one-bedroom living. Maybe she likes the house, the yard, the expensive SUV, the fifty grand in the bank.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t believe moving out will be enough,” Bobby countered levelly. “Not all abusive husbands are willing to take the hint.”

  “All right,” D.D. granted him. “That, too. Tessa decides she needs a more permanent solution. One that removes Brian Darby from her and Sophie’s life forever, while preserving prime Boston real estate. So what does she do?”

  Bobby stared at her. “You’re saying that based on her experience with Tommy Howe, Tessa decides to stage an attack where she can shoot her husband in self-defense?”

  “I’m thinking that thought should’ve crossed her mind.”

  “Yeah. Except Tessa’s injuries aren’t staged. Concussion, fractured cheekbone, multiple contusions. Woman can’t even stand up.”

  “Maybe Tessa goaded her husband into attacking. Not too hard to do. She knew he’d been drinking. Now all she has to do is incite him into whacking her a few times, and she’s safe to open fire. Brian gives in to his inner demon, and Tessa takes advantage.”

  Bobby frowned, shook his head. “That’s cold. And still doesn’t hold water.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of Sophie. So Tessa gets her husband to hit her. And Tessa shoots her husband. As you put it yesterday, that explains his body in the kitchen, and her visit with the EMTs in the sunroom. But what about Sophie? Where’s Sophie?”

  D.D. scowled. Her arm rested across her stomach. “Maybe she wanted Sophie out of the house in case she witnessed the event.”

  “Then she arranges for Sophie to stay with Mrs. Ennis.”

  “Wait-maybe that’s the problem. She didn’t arrange for Sophie to stay with Mrs. Ennis. Sophie saw too much, then Tessa had to squirrel her away so we couldn’t question her.”

  “Tessa has Sophie in hiding?”

  D.D. thought about it. “It would explain why she was so slow to cooperate. She’s not worried about her child-she knows Sophie is safe.”

  But Bobby was already shaking his head. “Come on, Tessa’s a trained police officer. She knows the minute she declares her child missing, the whole state goes on Amber Alert. What are the chances of successfully hiding a child whose photo is being beamed over every major news medium in the free world? Who would she even trust with that kind of request-It’s nine a.m. Sunday morning, I just shot my husband, so hey, want to run away with my six-year-old for a bit? This is a woman we’ve already established doesn’t have close family or friends. Her options would be Mrs. Ennis or Mrs. Ennis, and Mrs. Ennis doesn’t have Sophie.

  “Furthermore,” Bobby continued relentlessly, “there’s no endgame there. Sooner or later, we’re gonna find Sophie. And when we do, we’re gonna ask her what she saw that morning. If Sophie did witness Tessa and Brian’s confrontation, a few days’ delay isn’t going to change anything. So why take such a risk with your own kid?”

  D.D. pursed her lips. “Well, when you put it like that…” she muttered.

  “Why is this so hard for you?” Bobby asked suddenly. “A fellow officer is hospitalized. Her young daughter is missing. Most of the detectives are happy to help her out, while you seem hell-bent on finding a reason to string her up.”

  “I am not-”

  “Is it because she’s young and pretty? Are you really so petty?”

  “Bobby Dodge!” D.D. exploded.

  “We need to find Sophie Leoni!” Bobby yelled right back. In all their years together, D.D. wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Bobby yell, but that was okay, because she was shouting, too.

  “I know!”

  “It’s been over twenty-four hours. My daughter was crying at three a.m., and all I could wonder was if somewhere little Sophie was doing the same.”

  “I know!”

  “I hate this case, D.D.!”

  “Me, too!”

  Bobby stopped yelling. He breathed heavily instead. D.D. took a moment to expel a frustrated breath. Bobby ran a hand through his short hair. D.D. mopped back her blonde curls.

  “We need to talk to Brian Darby’s boss,” Bobby stated after another minute. “We need a list of any friends, associates who might know what he’d do with his stepdaughter.”

  D.D. glanced at her watch. Ten a.m. Phil had scheduled the call with Scott Hale for eleven. “We gotta wait another hour.”

  “Fine. Let’s start calling gyms. Maybe Brian had a personal trainer. People confess everything to their personal trainers, and we need a confession right about now.”

  “You call gyms,” she said.

  Bobby eyed her warily. “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “Locate Juliana Howe.”

  “D.D.-”

  “Divide and conquer,” she interjected crisply. “Cover twice the ground, get results twice as fast.”

  “Jesus. You really are a hard-ass.”

  “Used to be what you loved about me.”

  D.D. headed for her vehicle. Bobby didn’t follow her.

  16

  Brian and I had our first big fight four months after getting married. Second week in April, an unexpected snowstorm had blanketed New England. I’d been on duty the night before, and by seven a.m. the Mass Pike was a tangled mess of multiple auto accidents, abandoned vehicles, and panicked pedestrians. We were up to our ears in it, graveyard shift swinging into day shift even as additional officers were being summoned and most emergency personnel activated. Welcome to the day in the life of a uniformed officer during a wintry Nor’easter.

  At eleven a.m., four hours after I would’ve normally ended my shift, I managed to call home. No one answered. I didn’t worry. Figured Brian and Sophie were outside playing in the snow. Maybe sledding, or building a snowman or digging for giant purple crocuses beneath the crystal blue April snow.

  By one, my fellow officers and
I had managed to get the worst of the accidents cleared, about three dozen disabled vehicles relocated, and at least two dozen stranded drivers on their way. Clearing the Pike allowed the plows and sand and gravel trucks to finally do their job, which in turn eased our job.

  I finally returned to my cruiser long enough to take a sip of cold coffee and check my cellphone, which had buzzed several times at my waist. I was just noticing the long string of calls from Mrs. Ennis when my pager went off at my shoulder. It was dispatch, trying to reach me. I had an emergency phone call they were trying to patch through.

  My heart rate spiked. I reached reflexively for the steering wheel of my parked cruiser, as if that would ground me. I had a vague memory of granting permission, of picking up the radio to hear Mrs. Ennis’s panicked voice. She’d been waiting for over five hours now. Where was Sophie? Where was Brian?

  At first, I didn’t understand, but then the pieces of the story emerged. Brian had called Mrs. Ennis at six a.m., when the snow had first started falling. He’d been watching the weather and, in his adrenaline junkie way, had determined this would be a perfect powder ski day. Sophie’s daycare was bound to be canceled. Could Mrs. Ennis watch her instead?

  Mrs. Ennis had agreed, but she’d need at least an hour or two to get to the house. Brian hadn’t been thrilled. Roads would be getting worse, yada yada yada. So instead, he offered to drop Sophie at Mrs. Ennis’s apartment on his way to the mountains. Mrs. Ennis had liked that idea better, as it kept her off the bus. Brian would be there by eight. She agreed to have breakfast waiting for Sophie.

  Except, it was now one-thirty. No Brian. No Sophie. And no one answering the phone at the house. What had happened?

  I didn’t know. Couldn’t know. Refused to picture the possibilities that immediately leapt into my mind. The way a teenager’s body could eject from a car and wrap around a telephone pole. Or the way the steering column of an older, pre-air bag vehicle could cave in a grown adult’s chest, leaving a man sitting perfectly still, almost appearing asleep in the driver’s seat until you noticed the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. Or the eight-year-old girl, who’d just three months ago had to be cut out of the crushed front end of a four-door sedan, her relatively uninjured mother standing there, screaming how the baby had been crying, she’d just turned around to check the baby…

  These are the things I know. These are the scenes I remembered as I slammed my cruiser into gear, flipped on lights and sirens and fishtailed my way toward my home, thirty minutes away.

  My hands were shaking when I finally careened to a halt in front of our brick garage, front end of my cruiser on the sidewalk; back half in the street. I left on my lights, bolting out of the cruiser and up the snow-buried stairs toward the dark home above. My boot hit the first patch of ice and I grabbed the metal railing just in time to keep from plummeting to the street below. Then I crested the hill and was pulling on my front door, working my keys with one hand, banging on the door with the other, even as the dark-eyed windows told me everything I didn’t want to know.

  Finally, with a sharp wrench of my hand, I twisted the key in the lock, shoved open the door…

  Nothing. Empty kitchen, vacant family room. I rushed upstairs; both bedrooms unoccupied.

  My duty belt jingled loudly at my waist as I rat-tat-tatted back down the stairs into the kitchen. There, I finally paused, took several steadying breaths, and reminded myself I was a trained police officer. Less adrenaline, more intelligence. That’s how one solved problems. That’s how one stayed in control.

  “Mommy? Mommy, you’re home!”

  My heart practically leapt out of my chest. I turned just in time to catch Sophie as she hurtled herself into my arms, hugged me half a dozen times, and started prattling about her exciting snow day in one long breathless rush that left me dazed and confused all over again.

  Then I realized Sophie hadn’t returned alone, but that a neighborhood girl was standing in the doorway. She raised her hand in greeting.

  “Mrs. Leoni?” she asked, then immediately flushed. “I mean, Officer Leoni.”

  It took a bit, but I managed to sort it out. Brian had definitely gone skiing. But he’d never taken Sophie to Mrs. Ennis’s house. Instead, while loading his gear, he’d run across fifteen-year-old Sarah Clemons, who lived in the apartment building next door. She’d been shoveling the front walk, he’d started talking to her, and next thing she knew, she’d agreed to watch Sophie until I got home, so Brian could get out of town faster.

  Sophie, who was enamored with teenage girls, had thought this was an exciting change of plans. Apparently, she and Sarah had spent the morning sledding down the street, having a snowball fight, and watching episodes of Gossip Girl, which Sarah had TiVo’d.

  Brian had never clarified his return, but had informed Sarah that I’d appear home sooner or later. Sophie had caught sight of my cruiser coming down the street and that had been that.

  I was home. Sophie was happy, and Sarah was relieved to turn over her unexpected charge. I managed to scrounge up fifty bucks. Then I called Mrs. Ennis, reported back to dispatch, and sent my daughter, who was hopped up on hot chocolate and teenage television shows, outside to build a snowman. I stood on the back deck to supervise, still in uniform, while I placed the first phone call to Brian’s cell.

  He didn’t answer.

  After that, I forced myself to return my duty belt to the gun safe in the master bedroom, and carefully turn the combo lock. There are other things I remember. Other things I know.

  Sophie and I made it through the evening. I discovered you can want to kill your spouse and still be an effective parent. We ate macaroni and cheese for dinner, played several games of Candy Land, then I stuck Sophie in the tub for her nightly bath.

  Eighty-thirty p.m., she was sound asleep in bed. I paced the kitchen, the family room, the freezing cold sunroom. Then I returned outside, hoping to burn off my growing rage by raking the snow from the roof and shoveling the side steps and back deck.

  At ten p.m., I took a hot shower and changed into a clean uniform. Did not remove the duty belt from the safe. Did not trust myself with my state-issued Sig Sauer.

  At ten-fifteen, my husband finally walked through the front door, carrying a giant bag and his downhill skis. He was whistling, moving with the kind of loose-limbed grace that comes from spending an entire day engaged in intense physical activity.

  He leaned his skis against the wall. Set down his ski bag. Tossed his keys on the kitchen table, then was just starting to remove his boots when he spotted me. He seemed to notice my uniform first, his gaze going automatically to the clock on the wall.

  “It’s that late? Crap, sorry. I must’ve lost track of time.”

  I stared at him, hands on my hips, the epitome of the nagging fishwife. I didn’t fucking care.

  “Where. Were. You.”

  The words came out hard and clipped. Brian looked up, appeared genuinely surprised. “Skiing. Didn’t Sarah tell you that? The girl next door. She brought Sophie home, right?”

  “Funny question to ask now, don’t you think?”

  He hesitated, less certain. “Is Sophie home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Sarah do okay? I mean, Sophie’s okay?”

  “Best I can tell.”

  Brian nodded, seemed to be considering. “So… why am I in so much trouble?”

  “Mrs. Ennis-” I started.

  “Shit!” he exploded, jumping immediately to standing. “I was supposed to call her. While driving. Except the roads really were crap, and I needed two hands on the wheel, and by the time I got to the highway and better conditions… Oh no…” He groaned. Slumped back down in his seat. “I screwed that up.”

  “You left my child with a stranger! You took off to play, when I needed you here. And you panicked a perfectly wonderful old woman who will probably have to double her heart medicine for the next week!”

  “Yeah,” my husband agreed, mumbling. “I messed up. I should’ve
called her. I’m sorry.”

  “How could you?” I heard myself say.

  He went back to work on the laces of his boots. “I forgot. I was going to drop Sophie off at Mrs. Ennis’s house, but then I met Sarah and she’s right next door-”

  “You left Sophie with a stranger for the entire day-”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. It was already eight. I figured you’d be home at any time.”

  “I worked till after one. And I’d still be working, except Mrs. Ennis called dispatch and had them emergency page me.”

  Brian paled and stopped fiddling with his boots. “Uh-oh.”

  “No kidding!”

  “Okay. Okay. Yes. Definitely. Not calling Mrs. Ennis was a first-class fuckup. I’m sorry, Tessa. I’ll call Mrs. Ennis in the morning and apologize.”

  “You don’t know how scared I was,” I had to state.

  He didn’t speak.

  “The whole way… driving here. Have you ever held an infant’s skull in your hands, Brian?”

  He didn’t speak.

  “It’s like cradling rose petals. The unfused segments are so paper thin you can see through them, so light that if you exhale, they’ll blow out of your cupped hands. These are the things I know, Brian. These are the things I can’t forget. Which means, you don’t screw up with a woman like me, Brian. You don’t hand over my kid to a stranger, you don’t ditch my daughter just so you can get out to play. You guard Sophie. Or you get the hell out of our lives. Are we clear on that?”

  “I screwed up,” he replied levelly. “I get that. Is Sophie all right?”

  “Yes-”

  “Did she like Sarah?”

  “Apparently-”

  “And you called Mrs. Ennis?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then at least things turned out all right in the end.” He returned to his boots.

  I crossed the kitchen so fast I nearly caught flight. “You married me!” I screamed at my new husband. “You chose me. You chose Sophie. How dare you fail us!”